Abstract:
It has been acknowledged in medicine and education that early detection of speech disorders in children is considered comparable to the importance of the detection of disease or visual and hearing problems. The speech pathologist's role is not only to provide traditional services concerning referrals from others, but also to plan and implement speech screening programs for preschool children (Drumwright et. al., 1973).Developmental studies have shown that during the preschool years a child develops a basic knowledge of rules concerning speech and language; therefore, a greater emphasis is being placed on including preschool children in routine speech screening procedures (Fluharty, 1974).Of even greater importance, in this study, are the culturally disadvantaged preschoolers enrolled in Headstart programs. Many speech screening tests have the limitation of not including preschool norms which were derived from lower socio-economic populations. This puts the Headstart preschooler at an even larger disadvantage when compared to inappropriate norms.As Lynch (1979) stated, "A reliable screening test should minimize false negatives (impaired individuals not identified by the test) as well as false positives (normal individuals identified as having problems.)" The value of this study lies in the importance of early, reliable, and accurate detection of possible articulation errors in a culturally disadvantaged preschool population.Disadvantaged children often seem verbally depressed and mispronounce many words; therefore, the Denver Articulation Screening Examination (DASE), which requires articulation production in verbally imitated isolated words, and the Stephens OralLanguage Screening Test (SOLST) , which requires articulation production in verbally imitated sentences, were chosen for comparison in articulation screening. Even though most articulation tests developed for children use the spontaneous method to test articulation production, the inherent reticence of preschool children may require the examiner to verbally present the stimulus item to elicit the appropriate response (Kresheck and Socolofsky, 1972).There has not been any investigation regarding a comparison of the DAS E and the SOLST; therefore, the main purpose of this study is to determine if the DASE and the SOLST are comparably efficient as screening tests of articulation for Headstart preschoolers.